Test Methods F.Heidary
A test method is a definitive procedure that produces a test result. It can be considered as technical operation that consists of determination of one or more characteristics of a given product, process or service according to a specified procedure. Functions of language tests ''' There are different purposes of language tests including: diagnosis and feedback, screening and selection, placement, program evaluation, providing research criteria, and assessment of attitudes and socio-psychological differences. '''Diagnosis and Feedback: perhaps the most common use of language tests, and educational tests in general, is to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the learned abilities of students. This use of test is of value in that it provides critical information to the students, teachers and administrator that should make the learning process more efficient. Screening and Selection: '''another important use of tests is to assist in the decision of who should be allowed to participate in a particular program of instruction. Selection decisions are often made by determining who is most likely to benefit from instruction, to attain mastery of language or content area or to become the most useful practitioner in the vocational domain represented. 'Placement: '''closely related to the notion of diagnosis and selection is the concept of placement. In this case tests are used to identify a particular performance level of the student and to place him or her at an appropriate level of instruction. '''Program Evaluation: '''another common use of tests, especially achievement tests, is to provide information about the effectiveness of programs of instruction. In this way the focus of evaluation is not the individual student so much as the actual program instruction. Therefore, group mean or average scores are of greater interest in this case than are isolated scores of individual students. Often one or more pretests are administered to assess gross levels of student proficiency prior to instruction. Following the sequence of instruction, one or more pretests are administered to measure post instructional levels of proficiency or exit behavior. The differences between pretest and posttest scores to each student are referred to as gain scores. '''Providing Research Criteria: '''Language test scores often provide a standard judgment in a variety of other research contexts. Comparisons of methods and techniques of instruction, textbooks, or audiovisual aids usually entail reference to test scores. Even examination of language structure itself or the physiological and psychological processes of language use may involve some form of measurement or testing. '''Assessment of Attitudes or Socio psychological Differences: '''attitudes toward the target language, its people, and their culture have been identified as important effective correlates of good language learning. It follows that appropriate measures are needed to determine the nature, direction, and intensity of attitudes related to language acquisition. '''Forms of language tests ' Just as there are many purposes for which language tests are developed, so there are many types of language tests. 'Objective vs. Subjective Tests: '''usually these types of tests are distinguished on the basis of the manner in which they are scored. An objective test may be scored by comparing examinee responses with an established set of acceptable responses or scoring key. No particular knowledge or training in the examined content area is required on the part of scorer (e.g. multiple-choice recognition test). Conversely a subjective test is said to require scoring by opinionated judgment, hopefully based on insight and expertise, on the part of scorer (e.g. free compositions). '''Direct vs. Indirect tests: '''it has been said that certain tests, such as ratings of language use in real and uncontrived communication situations, are testing language performance directly; whereas other tests, such as multiple choice recognition tests, are obliquely or indirectly tapping true language performance and therefore are less valid for measuring language proficiency. '''Discrete-point vs. Integrative tests: '''discrete point tests as a variety of diagnostic tests, are designed to measure knowledge or performance in vary restricted areas of the target language. Integrative tests, on the other hand, are to tap a greater variety of language abilities concurrently and therefore may have less diagnostic value in measuring overall language proficiency. '''Aptitude, achievement, and proficiency tests: '''aptitude tests are most often used to measure the suitability of a candidate for a specific program of instruction or a particular kind of instruction. Achievement tests are used to measure the extent learning in a prescribed content domain, often in accordance with explicitly stated objectives of a learning program. Proficiency tests are most often global measures of ability in a language or other content area. '''Psycholinguistic Classification ' In addition to the abilities to measure, the test methods that we use have an effect on test performance. The test facets can be grouped into five sets including the testing environment, the test rubric, input, expected response, and the relationship between input and expected response. '''The testing environment refers to extent of test takers familiarity with the place & equipment for administering the test, the personnel, the test time and condition of administrating. The test rubric includes the test organization, time allocation, and instructions. Instruction involves explicitness of the correctness criteria in clarifying of aurally or writing specific procedures. Input and expected response share some common facets, and the ways in which they can be related to each other provides a means for distinguishing three general types of test methods. Input can be characterized in terms of whether it is presented in the auditory or visual channel, whether it consists of language or non-language material, whether it is presented live or by some artificial mean, how precisely the problem is identified, the degree of speededness, and the nature of language employed. Expected response facets include channel, type of response (selected or constructed),form of response(language ,non-language or both ),the nature of language used ,and the degree and types of restrictions that are placed on the response. The degree of artificial restriction imposed by the test imposed on naturalness and authenticity of the test task Terms of length, embedded and reduced contextualization, compact or diffuse information ,abstract or concreteness, negative or positive ,and factual or counter factuality of the topic ,the genre, its’ organizational characteristics includes grammar, cohesion, rhetorical organization and its’ illocutionary and sociolinguistic characteristics. The relationship between input and expected response can be reciprocal, in which there is an interactive negotiation of meaning, nonreciprocal, in which there is no interaction between input and response, and adaptive, in which the input is affected by the test taker’s response, but without feedback to the test taker. The presented frameworks are means for describing performance on language tests and they are intended as a guide for both the development and use of language tests. These frameworks provide the applied linguistic foundations. References Bachman,L,F. (1990). Fundamental Consideration in Language Testing. Oxford University Press. Henning,G. (1987). A Guide to Language Testing: Development, Evaluation, and Research. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press